Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In continuing with my theme with the Beaufort-Delta Regional Leadership Council, upon returning back to Yellowknife I had some information in my mailbox regarding nursing services in a couple of the smaller communities in the Beaufort-Delta region. On two separate occasions over the Christmas holidays, there were two communities that only had essential services of nurses, and my questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services.
My first question is: Knowing that you’re going to be low on nursing or have staff shortages for that time in those communities, was there a plan put in place to restaff those positions during that time, and even before then, how long did the Minister and his department know that they were going to need staffing in these communities? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’ve always known that there is a staff shortage of nurses right across the Territories. We also know that we have a separate governance system in every health and social services authority across the territory. We can’t share resources as though we have one single governing system with doctors or nurses the same. So the health authorities with their own governance system get the nurses in, they hire the nurses or they hire locums to fill in these positions. So in reality, the department is not specifically aware where and when the nurses are not going to be, although they advise us that these places would have only essential services for certain periods.
As the Member indicated, in one place for 11 days they only had essential services. So we are aware all the time that there is a shortage of nurses, but where the authorities will deploy these nurses, we are not completely aware of that. Thank you.
I have a concern, because it’s during a high time where there are a lot of incident rates, such as people going through a hard time during Christmas, depression and those types of areas where there’s a possibility of something happening.
The Minister has also said that authorities don’t share their staff, but he’s always preached about this Yellowknife doctors pool going out to the communities. That’s where I think that when the department finds out that there’s going to be a staff shortage in the community, that they make a plan and create a plan so that people in these small communities have those services should they need them, especially the emergency services.
My next question for the Minister is: What was the action plan should there have been an emergency for these two communities? Thank you.
Thank you. Other than providing information to all of the community groups in the various communities where the health centres would close, with the exception of essential services, I don’t know if the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority actually had an action plan in place that would say that this is what we were going to do in case of emergency. I suppose that they would treat it like any other medical emergency. If there was a medical emergency at any time while there was staff at the health centre or not, they would be treated in the same type of urgency. Thank you.
Thank you. I understand that the Minister mentions that he doesn’t know if the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services Authority had an action plan in place, but as the Minister responsible for Health and Social Services and his department, I believe that he should have an action plan in place should any other small community in the Northwest Territories go through a nursing shortage or lose staff for a period of time, especially during a critical time of year, which is around Christmastime.
My next question for the Minister – hopefully he has these stats on hand. Was there any emergency calls in these two communities during this time and can he provide whether or not there were any emergency calls in these communities? Thank you.
Thank you. I do not have that information. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just following up, as a responsibility to the Department of Health and Social Services working out of the department, I feel that it’s their responsibility to help create these kinds of action plans and move nurses around, should a community need a nurse or need some type of services. Would the Minister commit to looking at that as an action plan for the future so we don’t have to bring these questions up in the House again? Thank you.
Thank you. The department and I are certainly aware that these are issues. Again, the current governance system allows each of the health authorities to employ nurses right across their own authorities. So each of the authorities would have a geographical area and they would employ the nurses to the locations. They’re independent from other authorities, and also independent from Stanton Hospital and independent from the Department of Health and Social Services. That is an issue; we see that as an issue. So recognizing that we’re doing something about the governance issue starting with the doctors, and also recognize that that’s a major issue with nurses as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
